What is your bird's favorite toy? I am looking for new ideas for home made toys for my cockatoo.?
Big birds are very intelligent and need a lot of stimulation to keep them busy. My bird is a Sulfur Crested Cockatoo. Her name is Chicken. She loves n...
Big birds are very intelligent and need a lot of stimulation to keep them busy. My bird is a Sulfur Crested Cockatoo. Her name is Chicken. She loves new foods and she likes to rip stuff up. I give her junk mail stuffed with fruit and veggies sometimes, which she likes quite a bit because it gives her her two favorite things. She has lots of perches, two swings, a coconut with a hole in it where I put her pellets and nuts, a music box with lights and buttons, a plastic chain to rattle, and she gets out several times each day. I would like to know what other people give their large birds to keep them entertained. I am not big on mirrors or bells for birds, as they can get a little obsessive-compulsive with them.
About the obsessive-compulsive thing: little birs housed alone often think of "the bird in the mirror" as another bird and bond really strongly with their image in the mirror, which can damage their relationship with the owner, often causing aggression. I have never given Chicken a mirror because a bite from a big beak is quite painful and can do some serious damage. Bells can get really annoying if a bird gets too attached to jangling it. I find contant bell ringing even more irritating than screaming. My friend’s parents have a bird who jangles the bell constantly AND screams simultaneously. I would lose my mind.
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Man – these people who are obsessed with mirrors!!!
Whats the point? What can they do but stare, ignore or get obsessed by them??? They are NOT good bird toys.
On the bell – issue: Very much against them personally. However – my Corella had a screeching problem and I needed something he could transfer some of that excess to. I caved in when I found a pipe bell – Powder coated steel, thick with a VERY muted low pitch ring – no access to the ringer etc. Music to my ears compared to the screeching believe me. The best thing about it though is that there is another section of pipe above the bell that has holes for threading leather and rope through – I put beads on and knot them – he spends hours undoing the knots which also stops him focussing on the bell too much. I would NEVER give him any other kind of bell though.
Rope or leather with knots – keeps him busy for ages. And if you knot things like big beads, leather scraps etc he can use them as foot toys once he’s undone the knots. After a few days re-assemble the toy.
I’ve been on the internet heaps and researched toys – my corella had a rather charming assortment of behavioural problems when I got him!!
Apart from the usual (which you seem to have taken care of already) some of the other toys my bird has are:
Rawhide bones (for dogs – unbleached), and pine cones, as foot toys. Cardboard rolls with nuts inside. Generally any combination of leather, paper, cardboard, rope, wood etc is great.
Treat balls – you can get them for dogs and cats. The cat size one is perfect for cockatoo’s. You put a treat inside (mine likes sunflower kernels) and they have to roll it around on the floor to get them out. I don’t leave this one in his cage though – only under supervision.
A treat maze – acrylic bird toy. Usually pretty expensive but I got mine from GetBirdStuff – see the maze here:
http://www.getbirdstuff.com/54/186.htm?130
They were very helpful, cheaper than anyone else and the maze fits in letter post so it doesn’t cost a fortune to get from overseas.
Plus its a toy you can leave in his cage – good for when you are out all day like me.
Do you put natural perches in your birds cage? If you change them over every now and then they will spend ages tearing off the bark. You should also put bird-safe branches in his cage – they like to chew the wood and strip the leaves off. Try different types of tree’s – mine has a preference for wattle.
birds like to look and talk to themselves with mirrors
Aww you sound like such a good pet owner
I was going to suggest a mirror before i read what you said at the bottom. i think you’ve pretty much given her nearly everything you can and i bet shes really happy!
grass and i don’t mean the drug!
The mirror is more of a problem with cockatiels and not so bad with others. I have a tiel and a conure and the tiel will stand and look at himself the full waking time of the day if I will leave it there. Really likes his looks I guess. My conure could care less about a bird in a mirror. I guess that is the diff in a smart bird and a dumb one because some breeds are smarter then others. The conure is smart enough to know it is just a mirror but the tiel thinks it is a bird lookin at him.
As far as a toy that my birds like is a string or cord through large plastic beads with wood items about every 5 to 10 beads apart. Put a bell on it too and if you don’t like the ringing take the guts out of it. tie one end of it to one side of his cage and the other end to the other end. mine has a blast trying to rip it apart. You can make you a nickles out of the same stuff and the will stand on your shoulder and chew on it the whole time. Don’t be surprised if you see your bird hanging upside down from it and falling off.
If you live in an area with a vinyard, get some REAL grape vines. Let them soak in your (clean) bathtub for a day in hot water (changing the water daily) then spray them with a veggie wash. I put these like a ladder up my wall to a shelf that I hung that goes over a window. They are safe to chew, gives GREAT exorcise as they climb and are generally cheap.
Get some of those large chunkey beads and make a "banner" out of rawhide leather. May African grey destroys his every couple of weeks, but it is a once-in-a-while treat. I also hang white computer paper and spray millet from it.
I went to a craft store that sold wood-working supplies and bought some shapes with holes in them, or put holes in them myself so there was not much of a gap to catch toe. I bought a dowel from Home Depot and made a perch out of plastic keys (made for human toddlers) and the wood shapes. They chew the crap out of them and it’s fun to watch them push the shapes across their perch.
Be aware- this one WILL make a mess, but it’s woth it! You can get something called "Shredders" at PetSmart. It is real dried palm leaf. Take peanut butter and bird seed (frozen for at least 24 hours) and roll it into a ball. Take the Shredders and wrap it around the ball to make a pinianta for parrots. Hang it in the cage (put plastic table cloths down to catch the flung peanut butter) and watch the action!
I bought one of those drums for kids by… either Leap Frog or Little Eistinen. They love to make noise, and sometimes they klnock their beaks against perches, so why not intoduce a little more noise? I don’t mind it one bit, because I play with it too
It makes music, or it can do the ABCs and numbers up to 10. Since I bought this, my Cockatoo can count up to five, and my African Grey sings "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".
The mirror thing all depends on the bird. Two of my Cockatiels hate mirrors, and it is my female that is a reflecta-holic. I have a large mirror in my living room that I use. As long as there is a reflection of the owner as well, the bird will not bond that much to the mirror. It’s a great game to play- I have a playstand on wheels I put in from of the mirror, then we all dance! It’s really fun and cute!
Most of my parrots like to dance, so I put on some rock and roll, like Little Richey and Bare Naked Ladies, and dance with them. We can get a little silly, but it is well worth the weirdness. We entertain guests very well!
My husband and I have two Tiels…Kix and Ronnie. I know they are smaller than your bird but they are very active and I am always thinking of new ways to entertain them. We let them stay out of their cage all day, so they need plenty of toys. I have found that they really like sea shells. I have strung them on a small rope, put them in a dish, and put small ones in a dish of water. The water can make a little mess but they live in a room with no carpet so it is not much hassle. They really love to grab the shells. Our birds also enjoy tinker toys. Yes, the same ones that children used to and still do play with today. They like all the different shapes and sizes. Some of them are colored so you have to be careful to get ones that are not toxic to your bird. Many craft stores sell them without color or harmful coatings. Craft stores are a GREAT place to find things for pet birds. You can get some really good ideas just by walking through and being aware of what is there. I hope this is helpful!
Birds love mirrors. It’s actually pretty funny to see what they do with them. My birds love ropes to chew on. For the bigger more inteligen birds, give them puzzles like nuts in a wooden cage.
she likes to play with a bell. but do not give it a mirror, or it will ignore you comletely! it will think there is a nother bird there.
DO not get him started on mirrors, ours is so self loving he hates us now, but thry just paper to shred up, my senigal loves to shred paper,
You’ve been given some really good ideas here and I don’t really have many more to offer. I just wanted to add that you’re already off to a great start. It’s that creativity (like putting fresh fruit in junk mail) that will keep you close to your cockatoo. My own cockatoos love those pinaytas that you can buy at petsmart with dried papaya in them. They like to hang out on their perch with wooden chew toys hung from rawhide strips. They love anything they can destory, including my blinds (they just tore a big viewing hole in them last night).
. In short, anything they can get their beak around and tear up. The messier the better. Have as much fun with Chicken as you can. Dance and sing with her. Play tug of war with her. You’re doing great already. I love all of the ideas babefirstclass gave you. She really knows her toys.
Good luck!
Wow! I got a lot of ideas from everyone–I have a sweet greater sulfer crested princess, Baby–! Lately she loves to chew on those "shims" (pieces of wood from Home depot, REALLY cheap)–my husband drills holes in both side and I either hang them by twine, or I also have a spiral-shaped piece of sturdy wire that I string them around. She loves it. Also she LOVES to try to bite off small plastic beads from string or wire. They are real cheap in a craft sore. Just make SURE at first that Chicken is not going to try to SWALLOW them, if she likes them! I watched Baby pretty closely, but she just likes to break them and watch them go rolling on the floor so the cats can chase them while she watches. Great entertainment.
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